Page 51 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

Leveraging away from the washbasin stand, I stumble to the bed and sag onto the edge, watching the proceedings with a palm to my forehead. The heat of the bath had made me feel marginally better, but now that I'm here, the ache in my head has returned full force and it's driving an icepick into the back and front of my skull.

Theos grimaces at the cup of liquid Kalix holds out to him. We both know that Kalix means his threat. After all, it's not a threat to him. He'll do it and he won't care that it angers Theos. Knowing that as I'm sure he does, Theos rips the glass from him and stares into its contents, his upper lip peeling back from his teeth.

"It smells of elderberries and manure," he gripes.

Kalix shrugs and hands a glass to Ruen before lifting the final one and striding over to hand it to me. I take a delicate inhalation and grimace. Theos is right. The concoction smells truly awful, but it also smells familiar and I recognize it as a brew that Regis had drunk time and time again. Therefore, I know exactly what Kalix is trying to accomplish in giving it to us.

I reach up and pinch my nose shut before setting the rim of the cup to my lips and tipping my head back. If I thought there was a way for such a mixture to smell worse than it tasted, the flow over my tongue quickly corrects that assumption. I nearly gag as I down mouthful after mouthful, draining the cup quickly and efficiently. By the time the last drop is gone, the agony in my skull has lessened considerably.

With a gasping sigh, I get to my feet, walk over to where the tray sits on the table, and set it down. Theos and Ruen both stare at me as if waiting for a verdict. I gesture for them to hurry up. Ruen grunts, but performs the same actions as me, driving the cup to his mouth and tipping his head back to swallow it as fast as possible. I don't know if actually pinching a person's nose helps with the horrid taste, but it at least dampened the smell for me as I drank. Ruen doesn't seem to care as he downs the liquid and then, eventually, a complaining Theos follows suit.

Minutes later, the pain in my head is all but gone and I can tell that the concoction's effects are working on Ruen and Theos. "Why didn't you have to drink any?" Theos snaps, glaring at Kalix.

Picking up the tray and turning to the door, Kalix drops it on the floor outside, the sound of the cups falling over echoing into the corridor before he shuts the door again. "I didn't need it," is all he says.

"What ... exactly happened last night?" Ruen asks, his words slower than usual as if he's trying to work over a difficultproblem in his head. No doubt he's trying to recollect last night’s missing memories and coming up with very little.

Theos is the one to answer. "I think we were drugged."

Silence spreads through the chamber until all I can hear are the combined breaths of the four people in the room and the sound of a bird's wings fluttering against glass. My eyes lift to the window to see a blackbird hovering there. Beady dark eyes meet mine through the surface and his beak pecks at the outside.

Regis.

I'm moving before I even realize it, running across the room to find the latch on the window and yank it open as Regis' bird comes sailing into the room in a flurry of wings and feathers. It circles once, twice, and on the third route, the animal lands on the cushioned seat usually reserved for Kalix. As expected, there's a small scroll attached to its foot. Unlacing the tie keeping it in place, I unravel the paper and begin to read.

Dead men not found. O and I are tracking C. We intercepted a letter from his Master. Will find a way to send it soon. Stay safe. Stay alive.

— R

The note itself is short as they usually are. I find myself wishing there was a way for Regis and me to write at length. Because as I read the last words of his brief missive, all I have in response are questions.

"What does it say?" I lift my gaze from the scroll at Ruen's question. He's standing from the table, a bit more color to his cheeks and his shoulders straightened from his ear—a clear sign that the constant pounding no longer fills his head.

"They're alive," I say. There would be no note otherwise. "They're tracking Carcel and they have a letter from the one helping him."

"Any word on the dead men that Regis claims Carcel was using?" he asks.

I shake my head, my hand lowering with the scroll. "Here." Theos stands and marches towards me. "Let me take it."

I pull the scroll away as he reaches for it. "It needs to be disposed of."

One golden brow lifts over his eyes and he holds his hand out, not taking the paper from me but not relinquishing his desire to have it either. I hesitate for a moment more, not sure why he's being so insistent, but eventually, I sigh and hold it out for him. A spark leaps from his fingers as he stretches his out to take it from me. A jolt of heat and awareness slips over my flesh as the spark lengthens, becoming a miniature bolt of lightning that seems to curl around my forefinger, licking at my skin before jumping onto the scroll. I stare, open-mouthed as the lightning bolt doubles in size, causing the paper to catch fire and disintegrate. Ash and the edge of the parchment flutter between us. I'd forgotten—or rather, I hadn't known that this was another way for him to use his ability.

Brushing away the last of the ash with his boot, he turns back to the others. "I think we can safely assume that the Gods aren't throwing us parties here," he says. "Last night was no Cleansing."

Confused and still feeling the sensation of Theos' lightning gliding over the length of my finger, I walk past Theos to the table and search for a scrap of paper and a quill. I don't have to search long as Ruen's hand comes out, holding a ripped piece of parchment and one of the feathered writing utensils. I take it and murmur my thanks as I sit down and write my response to Regis. As I do, I listen to the Darkhavens.

"What was it?" Ruen asks, directing the question to Theos.

"It was a ceremony of sorts, that's for sure," Theos replies, "but I don't feel clean—if anything, I feel tainted somehow. Don't you?"

The tip of the quill hovers over my signature at his words.Tainted. Perhaps that was what the strange gritty feeling I'd awoken with had been. I'd felt defiled in some way. My backside still aches and so do my inner thighs. That's not the cause though. Something inside me, beyond my flesh and bones, is shuddering at a violation I didn't know I'd suffered. Slowly, I lower the quill to the table and begin to roll the parchment.

"You don't remember what happened last night either," I murmur as I focus on the task as if it's a matter of life and death. When the paper is rolled tight and tied off with a loose string, I lift my gaze and twist to face them all. "Do you?"

Theos shakes his head, then Ruen. Kalix doesn't have to. I already know what he recalls from the night before. Instead, he merely watches me with his back against the wall and his arms crossed over the wide expanse of his chest muscles. I stand up and walk back to the bird waiting on the window seat. Sea salt and smoke drift in through the open glass pane, the smell of the ocean and a long-ago fire on the breeze. I quickly tie the note to the bird's leg and lift it back out to the wind. If I'd had any food in the room, I'd have offered it a treat for its service, but it's a wild thing. It merely offers Regis and me the use of its gift of flight. It's a forager, an animal, that will remain more comfortable in the arms of nature.

"Why can't we remember,Dea?" The question comes from Theos and it's closer than I remember him being as I keep my back to the room and watch as Regis' bird soars into the clouds, higher and higher until it disappears altogether. I can't help the bite of jealousy in my chest at the sight. I wish I could do that—just soar away and escape any place that would wish to cage me.

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